Mark Twain used to say that a lie can fly half way around
the world while the truth is still getting its boots on.
Almost from the beginning the “dossier” on Trump – actually,
a cluster-muck put together by a paid opposition researcher, apparently an
ex-British intelligence officer -- was rejected by news outlets that like to
think of themselves as champions of truth. Good for them. It had been shopped
around to various newspapers that had declined to bite because much of the
information in the cluster-muck seemed either implausible or unverifiable. Even BuzzFeed, which printed the damning
dossier, had doubts. But the news outlet was determined not to let doubt kill a
good story. And so, along with feeble disclaimers, BuzzFeed provided the dossier
to the general public.
The dossier read like an opposition research document
because that is what it was. And it was full of juicy bits that seemed to
confirm everyman’s worse suspicions concerning the president-elect, who had
usurped a position, president of the United States, that rightly should have
gone to Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton.
Alas, the erotic hook in the opposition research
document proved almost immediately to be a hoax, according to hoaxers
associated with 4ChanNow.
The steamy part of the cluster-muck alleged that prostitutes in Russia, under
the eyes of the deplorable Vladmir Putin and paid by Mr. Trump, wet a bed
previously occupied by President Barack Obama and his wife because – Trump hated
the Obamas. The incident, bait for the self-delusional, is fictional, but then opposition
research needs fangs to be successful.
Soon after the dossier was circulated by Buzzfeed and CNN, Zero Hedge reported “a post
on 4Chan now claims that the infamous ‘golden showers’ scene in
the unverified 35-page dossier, allegedly compiled by a British intelligence
officer, was a hoax and fabricated by a member of the chatboard as
"fanfiction", then sent to Rick Wilson, who proceeded to send it to
the CIA, which then put it in their official classified intelligence report on
the election.”
The whole cluster-muck fell apart nearly as soon as the opposition
research paper had been published and it was marginal though respectable news
sites that were responsible for sifting through the muck to discover the truth.
Mainstream news sites that had declined – for very good journalistic reasons –
to soil their papers with fictional sludge were praised by President-Elect
Donald Trump for having refused to print the so called dossier, after which Mr. Trump tore into a CNN reporter during a media availability, labeling him an employee of a “fake news” site.
The cluster-muck -- an opposition research paper commissioned
by what we might call Enemies of Trump (EOTs), both Republicans and Democrats -- found its way to politicians unfriendly to Trump: Senator John McCain shared the cluster-muck
with the CIA, and U.S. Senator Chris Murphy helpfully mentioned the dossier in
dark tones to Connecticut reporters.
The lie was flying around the world; the truth was still
putting its shoes on.
Honest journalists should be asking hard questions: Who paid
for the cluster-muck? Why did some politicians who ought to have known better
fall for the salacious hook? Really? Putin and Trump conspired to hire prostitutes to
soil a bed previously used the Obamas so that Trump’s hatred of the Obamas
might he satiated? Really? Why was everyone so late in challenging this
deplorable attempt to use the news media to fatally smear the Trump administration
before it had sprouted out of the ground? Why is Vladimir Putin so
successful in exploiting the American media? Why are editorial writers who
failed to denounce in the strongest possible terms those who exploited their
just concerns so – sorry, but there is no other word for it – self-delusional?
Congressional committees, one may be certain, will not address such questions.
Fake news operates on a simple assumption: If you know that
someone – everyone? – is disposed to believe A about B, you feed the false predisposition
by supplying the missing fake news that confirms A. At this point truth is shown
the door. It quite literally is no longer useful, because the object of
truthful assertions is to convince people; but if people may be convinced by
feeding false news to confirm their predispositions, the false method may
attain the same outcome. And politics is all about outcomes. If you label an argument or a person effectively, V.I. Lenin knew, you no longer have to argue
with it – or him.
That is the Devil that confronts every honest purveyor of
the truth. Sometimes, the Devil wins.
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